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SAN ANTONIO — If you ask almost anyone what makes Spurs-style basketball great, they'll tell you it is a focus on the fundamentals.

“You won't see many alley-oops or monster jams,” sports writer and researcher Chris Stankovich says, just “perfect synchrony, balance, and team play.”

Substance over style is a SpursNation mantra.

When it comes to making education great, high-quality early learning is a fundamental. While it may not be flashy to focus on preschool access, teacher preparation and overall quality, studies show how much this makes a difference.

A meta-analyses spanning five decades and more than 120 studies conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago and Rutgers — the most comprehensive to date — found that quality preschool has “a substantial impact on children's cognitive, social, and emotional development and school outcomes.”

An examination of the full evidence base by researchers from nine universities underscored the point, concluding that “early skills matter” and quality preschool can “help children build them.”

State and citywide universal access programs support this notion, proving the value of pre-K for students of diverse economic backgrounds, minority students, and English language learners. A five-state study of programs in Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia found that quality preschool yielded significant and meaningful impact on children's language, literacy and mathematical development.

Oklahoma's program — which became universal in 1998 — improved participants' pre-reading, pre-writing, and pre-math skills. Gains in Oklahoma were significant for Latino children but even greater for English-language learners whose parents speak primarily Spanish.

Still, critics argue that the effects of preschool are lost by the time children reach third grade. They raise an important point — but it isn't quite right.

What research shows is not that preschool gains are lost but that non-attending children's scores on some tests can catch up. A robust body of evidence shows even if you account for a convergence of test scores, the effects of high-quality preschool are substantial and lasting through the school years.

Long-term gains include stronger cognitive, social and emotional development, less-frequent grade repetition, higher high school graduation rates and college enrollment levels. And this is especially true for low-income children.

That last point is important.

Across the United States, there is a substantial and widening equity gap in the amount of enrichment that families spend on their children. In the early 1970s, wealthy families spent about $2,700 per year more on the enrichment than their low-income peers — providing for books, camps and quality child-care. Today that gap has almost tripled to $7,500 per year, according to research by Greg Duncan and Katherine Magnuson.

This is also true at the higher education end of the spectrum. As long as we as a nation remain on this path, a child's college chances will be less and less about his or her dedication, hard work and gifts, and more a factor of family wealth.

The impact of early childhood education on student success and economic vitality are among the reasons The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has made pre-kindergarten quality and access a centerpiece of its workforce investment strategy.

For every dollar spent in a well-designed program, economists estimate there is a $1.80 to $17.07 return. High-quality preschool options are equally important to working families in the U.S. This is why the Equal Voice for America's Families National Platform has called for increased access to and spending in early childhood education for families of all economic backgrounds.

Despite the need and the evidence, states have been balancing their budgets by cutting back early childhood education — not just during the recession, but also during the recovery. The most recent figures show that per-child preschool funding fell in 21 states last year. And a recent review of program quality found that only 15 states are spending enough to meet basic benchmarks, such as making sure that lead teachers have training in a pre-K area, that there aren't more than 20 children in a classroom, and that children have the chance for at least one meal a day.

Unfortunately, this is the road Texas has taken. Texas ranks 30th in pre-K spending nationally; worse, it meets just two of the 10 quality benchmarks. While Texas is in the top 10 states for access, the state has a long way to go to close gaps in quality and investment.

Closing these gaps could not be more urgent. Already, more than 60 percent of children enrolled in Texas public schools are living in poverty, and the number of children who are English-language learners has increased 40 percent in just the last decade.

If Texas were to expand and strengthen its early education program, its children would benefit. But evaluators from UT-Dallas, Rutgers and the Communities Foundation of Texas looked at academic performance effects in Texas pre-K and found “even a mediocre program implemented statewide can have a positive impact.”

The evaluators said, “We found consistent effects on math and reading test scores of economically disadvantaged and LEP students ranging from 0.05 to 0.1 standard deviations.”

Researchers also found a reduction in the likelihood that children would have to repeat grades and be assigned to special education. From these results, we can imagine that if implemented more intensively and at full scale, the impact the program could have for children statewide would have lasting effect.

The San Antonio experience can also inform this step. Locally, we offer Texas a growing knowledge-base and track record of success.

In the wake of national funding cuts to early education, San Antonio was among just a handful of cities, including Boston, Cleveland and Seattle, to take a pro-active approach to improving early childhood education. In forging its own path — from early childhood education to calling for more high school rigor and expanding college participation — the city is gaining traction and national recognition for its commitment to transforming education.

Led by Mayor Julián Castro in 2011, Pre-K 4 SA uses revenue from a local 1/8 cent sales tax to provide full-day pre-kindergarten to eligible 4-year olds. The program is on course to serve more than 22,400 students directly and benefit others through technical assistance and training.

And this builds on a history of local commitment to improving access and quality in early childhood education. AMANECER (“new day”), developed here in San Antonio by my colleagues at IDRA, was among the first early childhood bilingual education curricula in the nation designed particularly for children who spoke Spanish as a first language.

It was rooted in valuing and building on children's home culture, language and strengths while fostering meaningful partnerships between schools and families.

AMANECER gave rise to IDRA's Reading Early for Academic Development, or READ, project, also brought into being by the strength of school, community and family leadership in San Antonio.

Through READ, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, IDRA partnered with Head Start centers and public schools to establish centers and classrooms of excellence. The program provided comprehensive professional development, mentoring and coaching and produced vibrant, active, learning spaces for children with diverse learning needs. The results: significant improvement in pre-/post-language development.

Another example is AVANCE's Parent-Child Education Program (PCEP). Headquartered in San Antonio, the program has served families in San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Dallas and El Paso.

A longitudinal evaluation of AVANCE's two-generation model—which focuses on the powerful role of families — showed that more than 93 percent of mothers reported that their preschoolers were school-ready when they entered school. Nearly 90 percent of children stayed in school 10 years after their mothers participated in the program, significantly outperforming comparable statewide rates.

When asked about her vision for children, a parent participating in IDRA's Annual La Semana del Niño Parent Institute in April said: “I believe that all elementary schools should include pre-K-3 grade levels. ... All schools should have them.”

The research agrees. Quality preschool is a proven fundamental. It is time to focus on what matters.

Laurie Posner, MPA, is a senior education associate at the Intercultural Development Research Association and directs IDRA's SEED project. Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, SEED is dedicated to effective family-school partnerships and improving education for children ages infants to 8.